There's a big baseball party going on - not just at AT&T, in city bars or in front of your TV screen. But also in cyberspace.

Six years after Twitter launched in San Francisco, it's become an indispensable tool of the sports experience. Probably not what the founders intended, but live sporting events are the life of the Twitter party.

In measurements of "tweets per second" - how many people are sending tweets about the same event at the same time - sports events dominate. The European Championships last summer set a sports record, with 15,358 tweets per second. Also high on the list, last year's Super Bowl, Tim Tebow's playoff touchdown run, the 2011 Women's World Cup and Usain Bolt's gold medal sprint at the London Olympics.

The Giants dominated the Twitterverse in recent days. #RallyZito became a worldwide trending topic, as fans urged No. 75 to postseason glory. It seemed to work: Zito pitched the game of his life. Two nights later, #RallyEnchiladas, a tribute to Ryan Vogelsong's pregame meal, clearly influenced another stellar performance.

Why do sports and Twitter go so well together? Being on twitter during a live sporting event is like being at a sports bar. A really big bar that can fit millions of patrons. Some are just cheering. Some are superstitious - they have to change their avatars to reflect the team and fully believe that tweets like #RallyZito have power. Some people are cracking wise: the best part of the Twitter experience. There are a lot of people who can make 140 characters truly hilarious.

Unfortunately, like any large gathering of fans, there are always going to be some nasty fools in the crowd. Zito found that out when he launched a Twitter account and instead of being fun found the experience "pretty devastating." Zito didn't elaborate, but you can imagine the hateful comments.

On Monday night, after the Giants eliminated the Cardinals, some St. Louis fans took to Twitter to make homophobic remarks about the Giants and our city. There are revolting idiots in any crowd. Even a cyberspace gathering.